Our focus
The Impact Finance Hub (IFH) is a research unit under Deakin Business School’s Capital Markets research theme.
We support, facilitate and develop collaborations among Deakin Business School’s areas of research excellence in financial technology (fintech), sustainable development goals (SDGs) in investment and financing, and Islamic financing.
Fintech, SDGs and Islamic finance are all innovations currently influencing capital markets and hold the potential to generate beneficial economic and societal impact.
The IFH contributes to the understanding of the fundamental changes in capital markets driven by these and other innovations in technology, sustainability and ethical business practice.
The IFH also helps shape future coursework to align with key innovations in finance and investment that can be leveraged for positive economic and social outcomes.
Through its webinars, IFH shares knowledge from members and guest presenters to inform industry, student and general audiences on research findings, industry trends and relevant topics of interest.
Our research
We conduct research in partnership with Australian and international organisations across industry and the professions, international financial institutions and academia.
| Organisation | Project | |
|---|---|---|
| Asian Development Bank | Expectations of future income and real exchange rate movements | |
| Australian Centre of Financial Studies | Cross-border expansion of Australian banks | |
| Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia | Measuring and analysing unique characteristics of risks involved with Islamic financial instruments, role of religiosity | |
| Australia-China Joint Action Program between the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) | Impacts of changes in population structure on the performance of the Chinese real estate investment market |
Our team
Dr Emma Li, Director
Dr Emma Li is a Senior Lecturer in Finance in the Department of Finance at Deakin Business School. Emma joined Deakin in 2018 after working at ANU as a postdoctoral research fellow. Emma has an MBA in finance from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a PhD in finance from the University of Melbourne. Emma is also a visiting scholar of Tsinghua University, China.
Emma’s research focuses on entrepreneurial financing, crowdfunding and fintech, with work cited in All About Alpha and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIA). She has also worked as an academic consultant for the WISE Tree Fintech Research Centre, as a program committee member for the China Fintech Research Conference and has presented her work at leading international conferences in the US, Germany, France and China.
Dr Sagarika Mishra, Deputy Director
Dr Sagarika Mishra is a senior lecturer in finance in the Department of Finance at Deakin Business School. With a PhD in Applied Economics from Western Michigan University (USA), Sagarika has over 10 years teaching and research experience. Her research interests include econometric modelling and corporate finance topics, such as corporate culture, climate change, artificial intelligence and how they impact corporate outcomes.
Much of Sagarika’s research is interdisciplinary and her work has been published widely in journals such as the Journal of Banking and Finance, The Accounting Review, European Journal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions and Money, International Review of Economics and Finance, International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal and Journal of Accounting and Public Policy.
Dr Tze Chuan 'Chewie' Ang
Dr Tze Chuan ‘Chewie’ ANG is a Senior Lecturer in Finance in the Department of Finance at Deakin Business School. He obtained his Master and PhD in finance from the University of Melbourne. His research specialises in equity lending, short-selling, and firm-level productivity and their relationship with stock market activities. His current research examines the interaction between socioeconomic issues and financial market activities. Chewie has presented his work at international conferences in the US, China, and Australia. He has published his work in leading academic journals, such as the Review of Asset Pricing Studies and Journal of Empirical Finance, amongst others.
Dr Sohel Azad
Dr Sohel Azad joined Deakin in 2011 and is a senior lecturer in finance in the Department of Finance at Deakin Business School. Sohel holds a PhD in finance from Monash University. His research includes Islamic finance and banking, corporate finance, innovation, asset pricing and financial contagion. He has presented at many highly regarded international economics and finance seminars and conferences.
Sohel has held various teaching and research positions across Australia, Bangladesh, Japan and UAE, including Visiting Research Fellow at Kobe Gakuin University (Japan) and the American University of Sharjah (UAE). Sohel received the AAUT citation Award 2018 and Deakin University Vice-Chancellor’s Award for teaching in 2017. He is also a regular presenter at Deakin’s Trading Room.
Dr Mong Shan Ee
Dr Mong Shan Ee is a senior lecturer in finance in the Department of Finance at Deakin Business School and her research interests include human capital policies in corporate finance and cryptocurrencies. Before joining Deakin, Mong Shan was senior manager at the Specialist Risk Analytics Department of a banking group in Malaysia. She holds extensive experience in quantitative modelling and analysing large environmental, consumer finance and corporate financial data.
Mong Shan’s research has been published in leading international academic journals including the European Journal of Operational Research, China Economic Review, International Review of Financial Analysis and Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder.
Dr Ning Gong
Dr Ning Gong is a senior lecturer in Finance in the Department of Finance at Deakin Business School. Ning obtained his PhD in finance from Washington University (St Louis). His research is based in a broad area of corporate finance and policy implications and has been published in the Review of Finance, Journal of Financial Intermediation and Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.
Ning’s projects include coordinating employee donations to social programs (through employee matching grant schemes), the relationship between international migration and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and the impact of shareholder litigation risk on corporate workplace safety investment. He has twice won the Best Research Paper awards from the Australian Journal of Management and the International Review of Finance.
Dr Aziz Hayat
Dr Aziz Hayat is a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics at Deakin Business School. Aziz received his PhD from Monash University in 2007. His research includes applied works in economics and finance, which have been published in leading journals including the Journal of Banking and Finance and others.
During his PhD studies, Aziz worked as an intern on a project in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) which was later published in an A* finance journal. With research teams, Aziz has attracted funding from external bodies such as the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFANZ) and Japan’s Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI). He has also held a Deakin International Research Fellowship.
Dr Peter Vuong
DBS alum Dr Peter Vuong is a lecturer in the Department of Accounting. He has previously worked in the banking sector and completed his PhD in Banking and Finance at Monash University in 2021. Peter's research interests include corporate finance, corporate governance, fintech, financial contagion and systemic risk. His current research involves examining the cost of social responsibility.
Dr Santosh Mishra, external advisor
Dr Santosh Mishra is a banking executive with 15-plus years of combined experience in academic research and the banking industry. His focus areas are credit modeling, portfolio risk management, consumer and commercial analytics, and climate risk modeling. He also has subject matter expertise in the consumer and commercial products space. Dr Mishra is head of credit and climate modeling, and analytics at KeyCorp. Prior to KeyCorp, he worked at both State Street Corporation and Citibank in the end-to-end risk management of consumer and commercial portfolios. This included overseeing ALLL process, Basel AIRB modeling, CCAR model development, strategic asset disposition, and pricing and collection analytics.
Dr Mishra has a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical Engineering) from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela; a Master of Economics from Delhi School of Economics; and a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Riverside. He has spent more than five years in academic research and is published in reputed peer reviewed journals.
Contact us
Please get in touch if you would like to know more about our work or discuss collaboration or research opportunities.
Dr Emma Li (Director)
emma.li@deakin.edu.au
Dr Robert Xiao (Deputy Director)
r.xiao@deakin.edu.au